The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-08-14
NEW ENGLAND OLD MAIDS.
Some Interesting Statistics About the
Yankee Girls.

NEW ENGLAND OLD MAIDS.
Some Interesting Statistics About the
Yankee Girls.
Boston, Aug. 13-Some curious statistics
fell into my hands the other day when
shall reproduce for their bearing on ques-
ton of the hour-a pressing question in the
East at least-the growing number OF I'M
married women. In one of the smaller New
England towns, where it seemed as IL the
family were almost ceasing to be the unit OF
society. met a woman who for some years
back has kept record of the girls VINO nave
graduated from the high school OF the VII
lage, what they have done and what, up 10
date, has become of them. She gave me ner
figures for the classes from 1871 to 1876, from
sixteen to eleven years ago, and strange
figures for any marrying or giving III mar"
risge community they seem.
The average age of the graduates from
typical New England high school is between
IL and II years. Hence it would seem that
the women of whom this list has been KEPT,
ranging at present from ~ to 80 years oil,
have done the greater proportion OF all the
SETTLING in life" which they are likely to
do. .
There were 10 girls in the class of 1871:
OF this number 5 have married, have dled
of consumption, 10 are unmarried. VI the
l6 girls of 1872, have married and ~ are
single OF the 81 of 1878, Bare married ana
Is are single OF the IL OF 1874, Z nave
married, have died of consumption, and b
are single. OF the Is of 1875, 3 have mar
ried, has died of consumption and are
single OF the II of 1873, have married,
has died of consumption and 10 are single.
Making for a total of 80 graduates, q mar
riages II deaths and 81 women thus lar
single. No account is taken of the years
since 1876 because as the average age at
marriage is advancing no fair CONCLUSION
could be drawn from the younger classes.
The proportion of single women, 1t VIII De
seen, is nearly two-thirds of the whole num-
Der. Whether this town is fairly represen-
tative of its section | have no means OF
knowing nor whether the same proportion
would hold among the unschooled or less
schooled girls of the place. There Is no
obvious reason why it should not, however,
for a high school education is not sufficiently
exalted to rouse in any mind the suspicion
that the girl who has subjected herself to 1T
has thereby untitled herself for the domes
tic duties of life. The II deaths were one
and all from east wind consumption which
| gets to be hereditary and plays direful havoc
| in families. There have been two cases OF
| insanity, but these both occurred among
| the married 27 The largest number of chill
dren in the families of the married is B.
Three of the 30 girls went to college after
leaving the high school, but these are III the
| married list.
OF the unmarried 81, q follow a very
usual feminine trade; they are school
ma'ams, at Hampton teaching the Indians
under Gen. Armstrong, 20 in public schools
| and academies. Three set type, l reads
proof, is the head dressmaker in dry
| goods establishment dresmakers on
smaller scale, 3 are music teachers, has
studied medicine, Is are stitchers and but
tonhole makers in shoe shops, and the rest
| are home stayers.
Just what has brought about such pre-
| ponderance of spinsterhood it would be hard
| to say People have contended that it didn't
exist and have explained the immense sur
plus of women in New England on the sup
position that most of them are widows,
made so by the hazardous occupations of
the men on the Eastern coast Widows there
are in plenty, but these sixty-one-and
everybody who knows anything of New
England will find it an easy matter to call
up plenty of similar instances GER
tainly never married, probably most of them
have never had an opportunity to marry.
There are very few manageable young
men to be found at the present time in any
smallish New England town. The serene
quiet of the most lethargic section of these
United States doesn't suit a young man. He
goes away before he is old enough to marry
and the chances are he doesn't come back
again. He is a drummer out on the road
| somewhere, or he finds his way into bust
ness in Boston, New York or the West. If
he makes a vacation trip home, he is i'm
pressed by the lack of money in New Eng
land outside the cities, by the length of time
since the houses have been painted, and the
| amount of calculation required before a
dollar can be expended. He doesn't stay
| long enough to learn to admire the hardy
| thrift that can wiring a comfortable support
out of rocky soil where a New Yorker
would starve or commit suicide, and the
| girls he left behind him cannot compare, so
| he thinks on his return, for beauty of dress
or pretty coquetry of manner or small talk
| of society with the city girl who has become
| insensibly his standard of girlhood. Not that
| he expects to marry the city gill not at all,
no. The newspapers have slandered her to
! the transpanted country young man until
| between ice cream in summer and seal skins
in winte vilization would be justified if
| it put nIu aith in newspapers, in flinging
| its girl bil4.u, into the Charles River or the
| Hudson to rid the world of such useless in
cumbrances The fairly well-meaning and
| domestic young man thinks he doesn't APP
prove of the city girl, but her chic has none
| the less surely spoiled the country girl for
/ Illll Ule uSUHl ItSuIU Dtllls JIldb llt CUES
into bachelors lodgings until he has I'M
| fitted himself in tastes and habits to marry
| at all.
These things considered, it is fortunate
| for the spinster that she is beginning to
think it natural and not altogether I'M
pleasant state of affairs to be a Spinster
| They do not look to me an unhappy lot
| these New England old maids. For one
| thing New England is learning to be tender
of them. She does not call them old maids.
| Being so strong all element in society they
| perhaps dictate it's attitude toward them
! selves At all events, by pleasant euphenl-
| ism enough of the fiction of their perpetual
youth is Kept up until they die, You may
hear New England woman speak of the
Fisher girls" or the Simpson girln for
weeks before the truth is borne in upon
! you that the girls are well along toward
their SEVENTEEN year, They never married
and nobody was ever cruel enough to mark
out any line beyond which they ceased to be
| young.
They are self-respecting and respected,
these spinsters too. / wonder If it sounds
strange in more sophisticated ATTITUDES to be
told that there are to this day New Eng
! land towns in abundance where the best
educated and best bred Yankee girl of the
! best old colonial family can go into the shoe
| shop, as Lucy Larcom and her compeers did
| into the Lowell mills when mills and shoe
! factories were new, and work there years
after she has ceased to be a girl save by